Salted Caramel, Chocolate and Peanut Cracker-Stack Bars

These fantastic potluck bars come from Patrice Hurd of Bemidji, Minnesota. She won the grand prize in our 2012 Best of the Midwest® Recipe Contest. Patrice says they're a twist on her grandmother’s cracker bars. They cut beautifully and brim with salty-sweet-nutty-chocolately flavor.

Maple-Walnut Banana Bars

Caramel Heavenlies

Graham crackers form the base for this bar cookie with layers of marshmallows, brown sugar, almonds and coconut. "I've made these cookies since 1984," says Georgine Simmonds of Genesee, Michigan. "They're one of my family's favorites."

Scrumptious Seven-Layer Cookies

These rich bar cookies star among the sweets at Stafford's Bay View Inn in Petoskey, Michigan. Mix and match among your favorite treats for some of the layers to create a dessert that's just right for your family.

Caramel and Chocolate Kettle-Corn Crispie Bars

These bars, from Judy Reynolds of Bloomington, Indiana, won the grand prize of $10,000 in Midwest Living's first Best of the Midwest cook-off. Judy started with a Hoosier staple--popcorn--and stirred together these sweet-salty snack bars. Homemade caramel sauce helps makes them a standout.

Toffee Blondies

Maple Nutty Candy

These bar cookies combine four winning flavors: peanut butter, maple, butterscotch and chocolate. The easy recipe, from a Wabash, Indiana, reader, makes about 6 pounds of bar candy. We suggest freezing the bars and thawing them out as needed.

Candy Bar Cookies

These gooey bite-size treats feature a creamy mixture of chocolate pieces, butterscotch pieces and peanut butter over a cooked oatmeal-brown sugar layer. The recipe is from a Madison, Wisconsin, reader, who likes to take the bar cookies to potluck gatherings.

Date-Orange Bars

Chocolate and peanut butter bars

Chocolate and peanut butter naturally complement each other in these three bar cookie recipes. The Eagle Ridge Inn and Resort near Galena, Illinois, combines the flavors to make the candylike Hallelujah bars (left).

A Wisconsin reader sent us the recipe for Peanut Butter Fingers, which have rolled oats in addition to peanut butter and semisweet chocolate pieces. They're a great sweet ending to entrees and salads on a potluck table.

Danish Pastry Apple Bars and more

This recipe for Danish Pastry Apple Bars comes from an Indiana teacher who discovered these treats in a student's lunch box years ago. The student's family was happy to share the recipe; the results taste almost like apple pie.

After-School Apple Bars has a similar origin: A Michigan reader began making these when her son brought the recipe home from school. His third-grade teacher owned an orchard, and the class made this recipe after a bountiful apple harvest.

Frosted Apple-Pie Bars comes from a South Dakota reader who includes apples, sugar, cornflakes and spices in her filling.

Easy Candy-Bar Treats

Rhubarb Bars

Cooks in the Midwest's Red River Valley learned early to take advantage of rhubarb. The tangy, celerylike ingredient grows well in a region where strawberries seldom thrive. This recipe comes from RBJ's Restaurant in Crookston, Minnesota.

Comments (2)

Dear Midwest: As the owner of Her Majesty's English Tea Room I am always looking for new recipes for my guests. These are over the top! Thank you! You are my go-to source for new and exciting taste treats.
Warm regards,
Jacqueline Gillam Fairchild
Her Majesty's English Tea Room-facebook and pinterest
Author: Auntie Clara's Cookies and Treats and Estate of Mind

Dear Midwest: As the owner of Her Majesty's English Tea Room I am always looking for new recipes for my guests. These are over the top! Thank you! You are my go-to source for new and exciting taste treats. Warm regards, Jacqueline Gillam Fairchild Her Majesty's English Tea Room-facebook and pinterest Author: Auntie Clara's Cookies and Treats and Estate of Mind
1/27/16 | 10:07 AM